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POLICIES AND ISSUES IN PERSPECTIVE

A publication of the School of Economics, University of Asia and the Pacific, Philippines

LEGISLATED MINIMUM WAGE HIKE

Don’t do it
Both houses of Congress recently passed bills to grant across-the-board minimum wage
hikes. However, the obvious benefits notwithstanding, a legislated wage hike will end
up costing more in terms of higher production costs, higher inflation, and higher
unemployment.

Jose Leo Lemuel G. Caparas Jr.1

Economist
University of Asia and the Pacific

S T A F F

T
he minimum wage hike bills approved by Congress are
like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they
conceal is vital. Often highlighted are the benefits, but the
costs remain in the background.
Usually, an increase in minimum wage A second benefit is that a wage hike
should be cause for celebration. After all, a would be a mild form of income
legislated wage hike is not market driven and redistribution. National Statistical
would allow me to get more money without Coordination Board ( NSCB ) Secretary
doing much. While I didn’t productively work General Dr. Romulo A. Virola reported the
for it, the government bureaucrats want to state of income distribution in the
give me a bonus. The rationale behind the Philippines when he wrote about the
move may be laudable, yet would such a wage results of the latest Family Income and
hike really improve the lives of many Expenditure Survey (FIES)2 :
Filipinos? Let us examine the benefits and
costs of such an increase in wages. The FIES produces the Gini coefficient
which is a measure of income inequality. It takes
on values between 0 and 1; the higher the Gini,
The benefits the more unequal the income distribution is!
ISSN 0116–3515 I could count four benefits of a minimum For the Philippines, the Gini hovers around
wage hike. The first would be higher earnings 0.48 (2003), compared to 0.313 (2000) in
for the working poor. Had there been no Japan, 0.36 2 (2000) in the U.S.A., 0.423
minimum wage hike then the ranks of the (1998) in Singapore, 0.43 3 (2000) in
working poor would have been larger. Higher
2
minimum wages would help maintain the Virola, Romulo A. Statistically Speaking,
minimum standard of living necessary for the “The FIES of the Rich: Truth or Consequence?”
general well-being of minimum wage earners. Posted 12 December 2005. As lifted from: http:/
/www.nscb.gov.ph
1 3
Updated from the article that the author co- Source: OECD. Income Distribution and
wrote with Dr. Emilio T. Antonio Jr. and Luis M. Poverty in OECD Countries in the Second Half

2 Molina “Will a P25 minimum wage hike help the

workers”, Economic Policy Papers, CRC, No. 2 1992,
pp 1-4. The author’s e-mail is bingo@uap.edu.ph
of the 1990s. OECD Social, Employment and
Migration Working Paper No. 22. (http://
www.oecd.org)
2007
 2 Don’t do it • Jose Leo Lemuel G. Caparas Jr.
2 • 2007

Table 1 • The workforce Table 2 • Up in arms

Labor market at a glance, 2004-2005 Number of strikes and lockouts
Jan-Oct Jan-March
staff memos

2004 2005 2006 2004 2005 2006

(in thousands)
Household population, Actual strikes 25 27 6
15 years old and older 53,144 54,388 55,393 Workers involved 11,000 8,000 1,000
Employed 31,613 32,313 32,384 Man days lost 53,000 123,000 17,000
Underemployed 5,575 6,785 8,401
Unemployed 4,249 a 2,930 Source: Current Labor Statistics, Department of Labor and Employment
(DOLE), July 2006
(in percent)
Employment rate 88.2 a 91.8
Underemployment rate 17.6 21.0 25.4
Unemployment rate 11.8 a 8.2 Table 3 • Closed shops
Number of firms closing for economic reasons
a = cannot be computed due to adoption of revised unemployment definition starting Preliminary
April 2005 2003 2004 2005
Source: National Statistics Office Philippines
Firms 3,262 2,008 3,054
Displaced workers 67,977 3,163 57,821
Thailand, and 0.344 (2002) in Indonesia. What this means is that Metro Manila
the rich are much richer than the poor in the Philippines compared to Firms 2,059 1,180 2,230
Displaced workers 36,302 19,155 31,852
all the countries mentioned. In fact, the income of our richest (ten
percent) is twenty times the income of our poorest (ten percent)! Source: Current Labor Statistics, DOLE, July 2006

A third benefit is that higher wages would induce more

people to work rather than depend on remittances from Table 4 • Where’s the money
Comparative wages in selected Asian countries, December 2006
relatives working abroad. This might also encourage employers
to invest in their workers to improve their productivity. One Daily Minimum Wage Exchange
in local rate per
specific example of an investment in education, training, and currency in US$ US$1*
human capital outlay would be to sponsor workers to take Indonesia/Jakarta (Rupiah) 23,728 a
2.6 9,174.3
a
the Applied Business Economics Program ( ABEP) of the China/Beijing (Yuan Renminbi) 23 2.9 7.8
2
Thailand/Bangkok (Baht) 175 4.9 35.9
University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P). Philippines/Manila (Peso) 350 1
7.0 49.8
a
Finally, a wage hike would push up consumption. Since Malaysia (Ringgit) 46 12.8 3.6
Taiwan (Dollar) 528 16.3 32.4
workers are also consumers, higher wages would allow people South Korea (Won) 24,800 3
25.7 964.0
a
to demand and consume more, which in turn would encourage Singapore (Dollar) 73 47.5 1.5
Notes:
firms to invest in plant, equipment, and hire more workers to
1
An additional P25.00 daily basic pay, effective June 16, 2005
meet the higher level of demand. 2
Daily Minimum Rate in Bangkok and other Provinces, January 1, 2005
3
Minimum wage level Effective September 2004 - August 2005
a
Daily equivalent of minimum wage computed using 30 days
The costs *
Exchange rate data as of 4 December 2006
While an increase in minimum wage may bring benefits, it
Source: National Wages and Productivity Commission
also entails costs. To begin with, raising the minimum wage
will cause inflation to rise. Prices of goods and services go up
whenever wages go up. Thus, the gain in additional wages bottlenecks or rigidities, reflecting poor economic
would be offset by higher consumer prices. I would rather infrastructure or market imperfection. Legislated wage hikes
have more bang for my honest buck than have it eroded by are not determined by market forces but by institutional forces,
rising prices. thus they distort the market. The basic economic contention
Secondly, a legislated wage hike would cut the demand for is that markets work. We should get prices right by allowing
workers. Higher minimum wages might encourage firms to market forces to work.
invest in capital-intensive and labor-saving production Two sets of disturbing statistics are likely to worsen should
methods, and this would lead to higher unemployment. the legislated minimum wage hike take effect. The first is the
Recent figures show that 2.9 million or 8% of the workforce number of strikes and lockouts. The second is the number of
are unemployed (see Table 1). Forcing higher wages would firms closing shop due to economic reasons. (See Tables 2 and
reduce the demand for labor by substituting the capital for 3).
labor, thus further push-up unemployment. Lastly, higher minimum wages would dampen investments.
Thirdly, a legislated wage hike, as pointed out by Dr. Cid It may be one of the factors why the Philippines do not attract
Terosa,5 is an obstacle for growth. It is an example of structural as much investments as other countries. At $7 a day, the
4
minimum wage in the country is quite high relative to its Asian
Source: Asian Development Bank (ADB). Key Indicators 2005 (http://
www.adb.org/statistics) neighbors (see Table 4). The Metro Manila wages rose in July
5
During his lecture on Economic Development to graduate students of 11, 2006 when another round of minimum wage hikes was
the ABEP at UA&P on 11 January 2007. mandated.
 Jose Leo Lemuel G. Caparas Jr. • Don’t do it
Table 5 • Who’s working where?
Shares of employed person by major industry group in 2003, in percent
All industry 100%
Wage & Salary Workers 50%
Private employees 42%
Government employees 8%
Own account workers 38%
Unpaid family workers 12%
Source of basic data: 2004 Yearbook of Labor Statistics, DOLE
Table 6 • Replaceable cogs
Shares of minimum wage earner by major industry group, June 2003, in %
All industry
Real Estate, Renting and Business
Hotels and Restaurants
Wholesale and Retail Trade;
Repair of Motor Vehicles, Motorcycles
and Personal and Household Goods
Construction
Transport, Storage and Communication
Other Community, Social and Personal Service Activities
Health and Social Work except Public Medical, Dental &
Other Health Services
Private Education Services
Financial Intermediation
Mining and Quarrying
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply
Source of basic data: Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES), 2002/2003 BLES
Integrated Survey. Employment of Specific Group of Workers in Non-Agricultural
Establishments with 20 or more workers by major industry group
Framework for evaluation
There are four basic principles to remember when discussing
the minimum wage issue:
a. Wages are prices that are set in the labor market. Wage
is the price that a worker is willing to get for a service, as
well as the price that an employer is willing to pay for a
service. This is why firms compete for workers and
workers compete for jobs. Firms that disregard the
market usually have unproductive workers, high
turnovers, and disloyal workers. On the other hand,
when workers disregard the wage dictated by the market,
they are less likely to get a job.
b. The labor market in a developing country, however, is
far from perfect. There is usually an excess labor supply
and high unemployment rates.
c. Because of the excess labor supply, wages can be driven
down to extremely low levels. Since human beings are
involved, the aspect of fairness must enter the equation,
thus wages should not drop below the level necessary
for a worker to sustain a dignified life.
d. The minimum wage therefore is a safety net intended
to prevent the market from exploiting workers whose
alternative to accepting an inhumanly low wage would
be to die of hunger. The ultimate usefulness of minimum
wage legislation depends on whether it fulfills this
function or not.
These basic principles make up a framework which can be
used to assess a proposed minimum wage adjustment. Two
3
specific facets of this issue deserve closer consideration:
a. Does the present or contemplated wage provide what a
worker needs for a family life consistent with the
requirements of human dignity? The issue here is
whether the level is set properly or not.
b. How effective is minimum wage legislation as a tool for
preventing employers from paying their workers less than
what is required for dignified living? Within this are two
sub-issues:
• Is the legislation actually enforced?
• If actually enforced, would the legislation accomplish
the ultimate objective of protecting all the workers?
32 %
56 The wage level
40
40 Consider the first issue: wage level. This should have been easy
to determine but the discussion on this issue tends to get
40 muddled because we often fail to define precisely whose needs
24 are being addressed by the minimum wage. The important
24
thing to remember is that we are ultimately interested in
22 protecting the welfare of all the workers and not just the
13
8 minimum wage earners. This distinction is important because
8 minimum wage earners are just a segment of the entire labor
7
force. If they were the only workers we were concerned with,
then the minimum wage legislation would have a relatively
narrow focus.
I suspect that minimum wage earners are a minority. In
2003, only 50% of all the employed persons are wage and
salary workers. Of this lot only 42% are wage earners in the
private sector (see Table 5). I believe that the minimum wage
hike would only directly afffect much less than the 42% slice
of this pie . More than 58% of workers in all industries are
non-private wage workers, whose salaries are not directly
addressed by the minimum wage hike.
The June 2003 figure is even more revealing. Of the 2.6M
workers employed in major industries, only 32% are paid the
minimum wage (see Table 6). Industries like real estate, renting
and business activity (56%) would have a bigger share of their
work force that is paid the minimum wage. Others like the
electricity, gas and water supply (7%) would have less.
Defining who the minimum wage earners are relevant UNIVERSITY OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
because they are likely to have a specific set of characteristics
which must be considered in quantifying what the minimum
wage level should be. There are no official statistics on the
characteristics of the minimum wage earners as distinguished
from the other segments of the labor force, but the result of
studies we conducted on rank-and-file employees indicate that6:
• Workers at the lower wage levels are the new entrants to
firms and are predominantly single. Their incomes are
likely to supplement only the earnings of the heads of
their families. Among the workers in this group, we
hardly find cases of workers earning less than what is
required for their basic needs.
6
Studies conducted by the author with Dr. Emilio T. Antonio Jr.
 4 Don’t do it • Jose Leo Lemuel G. Caparas Jr.
2 • 2007
• Workers at the higher income categories are usually those
who have been in the company for some time. Despite
their higher salaries, however, a significant number of
staff memos
them earn less than they require for a decent family life
because their needs have risen. They have a bigger family
to support. The changes in their salaries have failed to
keep pace with the changes in their family situation.
These findings suggest firms must turn to instruments
other than the minimum wage to guarantee a decent life for
their workers. The problems they urgently need to solve are
those faced by non-minimum wage workers whose incomes
cannot support their families.
Within the context of such distinctions, we reach the
following conclusions:
• The existing minimum wage is more than sufficient to
cover the basic needs of minimum wage earners. Studies
done by the UA&P show that, as of January 2007, a single
individual in Metro Manila would need only about P190
to P270 a day to satisfy his basic needs.7 The present
minimum wage is more than this figure.
• An average worker with a family is likely to find the
minimum wage inadequate. But since these workers are
likely to be earning more than the minimum wage, their
basic needs cannot be usefully evaluated by the data
surrounding the minimum wage debate. To assess their
actual plight, we must determine how much workers earn
and how much they must earn to give their family a
comfortable life.
How effective is the minimum wage
Let us now consider the second issue, which is how effective
minimum wage legislation is as a safety net to prevent workers’
exploitation? As previously mentioned, effectiveness has two
important dimensions: (a) whether the legislation can actually
be implemented; and (b) whether it achieves the ultimate
objective to protect all the workers.
There is definitely a problem with implementation. Surveys
of compliance with the law clearly show that a significant
number of firms do not pay the mandated minimum wages.
It is important to note, however, that the number of
compliant firms far exceeds the number of violators. Thus, it
cannot be said that the minimum wage law is fundamentally
ineffective because it cannot be implemented.
The more problematic issue is whether a minimum wage
hike is effective in protecting all workers since the protection
of one sector is likely to be accomplished at the expense of
another group. Specifically,
a. a higher floor wage would protect minimum wage
earners at the expense of other workers. The data we
previously presented suggests that:
7
These figures are updated from the author’s article “Threshold
Family Budget An input to wage setting,” UA&P Staff Memos, No. 20
2002. As lifted from: www.uap.edu.ph/abep
• minimum wage earners are “overprotected” by the
present and contemplated legislations;
• it is probable that the law would place those who
actually need help at a disadvantage. Why? The
resources used to provide “excess” protection to the
minimum wage earners are the same resources
which could have been used to help other workers.
b. a higher floor wage would protect those who already
have jobs but would discriminate against new entrants
to the labor market as well as the probable victims of
layoffs. This affects those without jobs or those about
to lose jobs in two ways:
• it makes finding work even harder because: (i) firms
will try to economize on labor; and (ii) those whose
profit margins are wiped out by the increased labor
costs may close shop.
• it makes the lives of job seekers even more
miserable because of the inflation that is sure to
follow the wage hike.
c. since most of the job seekers are likely to be the new
entrants to the labor force, those who are deprived of
the chance to work are those who probably intended
to supplement the total family income. They include
students or housewives who want to work on a part-
time basis. Thus, families who can only earn their basic
needs by putting other family members to work are
effectively denied the chance.
In sum, while the minimum wage law protects the interest
of minimum wage workers, it does so at the expense of the
other workers and sectors in the economy. Since minimum
wage earners account for only a minority of those employed,
the effectiveness of the law as a safety net for all workers
becomes questionable. Instead of helping, the law may be a
hindrance for those struggling to earn what is required for a
decent family life.
The right wage
The wage for a decent family life is different from legislated
minimum wages. It is worth noting how the Compendium of
the Social Doctrine of the Church summarized the concept of
the just family wage:
In order to protect this special relationship between
family and work, an element that must be appreciated and
safeguarded is that of a family wage, a wage sufficient to
maintain a family and allow it to live decently.8 Such a
wage must also allow for savings that will permit the
acquisition of property as a guarantee of freedom. The
right to property is closely connected with the existence
8
Cf. Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno: AAS 23 (1931),
200; SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Pastoral
Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 67: AAS 58 (1966), 1088-1089; JOHN
PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 19: AAS 73 (1981), 625-
629.
 Jose Leo Lemuel G. Caparas Jr. • Don’t do it
of families, which protect themselves from need thanks
also to savings and to the building up of family property.9
There can be several different ways to make a family wage
a concrete reality. Various forms of important social
provisions help to bring about, for example, family
subsidies and other contributions for dependent family
members, and also remuneration for the domestic work
done in the home by one of the parents.10
Company executives who want productive workers should
know, even for purely narrow interests, whether their workers
are earning enough to satisfy their families’ basic needs. In this
area, the Threshold Family Budget (TFB) concept developed at
UA&P provides considerable help. The TFB is the amount
required for a family to attain a reasonable standard of living.
Companies whose employees were audited to have TFB
significantly higher than their total take home pay have
experienced declining productivity. Employees are often late
or absent. On the other hand, firms that ensure that most, if
not all, of the basic needs of their employees’ families are met
have financial bottom lines that are in the black. They get
productive high-quality workers that have a good sense of
being. Thus, it is the firms, and not government bureaucrats,
that are in the best position to decide what wages to pay their
workers. The firms that put money where their mouth is
usually get what they pay for.11
Pass on it
What is obvious and seeming could be deceiving, which is
what a minimum wage hike bills are. While workers welcome
such legislated wage bills passed by Congress because they need
to cope with the high cost of living, employers object because
a higher mandated wage hike will push-up their production
costs, higher inflation, and unemployment.
Although the intent of a higher legislated minimum wage
is commendable, there are compelling reasons to doubt it will
achieve what it sets out to do. Wages are best set by two
contracting parties—the employers and workers. A second
ideal alternative in setting minimum wage is through the
regional wage boards instead of a higher body of bureaucracy.
Given these reasons it would be an economically sound
decision for the President to let the market work. It would be
in everyone’s best interest that she vetoes the minimum wage
bills passed by Congress to prevent these from becoming law.
9
Cf. LEO XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum: Acta Leonis XIII,
11 (1892), 105; PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno: AAS
23 (1931), 193-194.
10
Cf. JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 19: AAS
73 (1981), 625-629; HOLY SEE, Charter of the Rights of the Family,
art. 10 a, Vatican Polyglot Press, Vatican City 1983, p.14.
11
Firms interested in having a TFB audit conducted may get in touch
with the author at bingo@uap.edu.ph. An audit fee, which depends on
the number of employees and simulations, would serve as a tax-
deductible research grant.
5
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UNIVERSITY OF ASIA AND THE PACIFIC (formerly Center for Research and
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